Book excerpt: A cutting-edge, UML-based approach to software development and maintenance that integrates component-based and product-line engineering methods. - ripe market: development of component-based technologies is a major growth area - CBD viewed as a faster, more flexible way of building systems that can easily be adapted to meet rapidly-changing business needs and integrate legacy and new applications (e.g. Forrester report in June 1998 predicted that by 2001 "half of packaged apps vendors will deliver component-based apps"; e.g. Butler Group Management Briefing (2000): "Butler Group is now advising that all new-build and significant modification activity should be based on component architectures...Butler Group belives that Component-Based Development is one of the most important events in the evolution of information technology" e.g. Gartner Group estimates that "by 2003, 70% of new applications will be deployed as a combination of pre-assembled and newly created components integrated to form complex business-systems. The book defines, describes and shows how to use a method for component-based product-line engineering, supported by UML. This method aims to dramatically increase the level of reuse in software development by integrating the strengths of both of these approaches. UML is used to describe components during the analysis, design & implementation stages and capture their characteristics and relationships.This method includes two new kinds of extensions to the UML: new stereotypes to capture KobrA-specific concepts and new metamodel elements to capture variabilities. The method makes components the focus of the entire software development process, not just the implementation and deployment phases. The method has grown out of work by two companies in industry (Softlab & Psipenta) and two research organizations (GMD FIRST & Fraunhofer IESE) called the KobrA project. It is influenced by a number of successful existing methods e.g. Fusion method, Cleanroom method, Catalysis & Rational Unified Process, integrated with new ideas in an innovative way. Benefits for the reader: - gain a clear understanding of the product-line and component-based approaches to software development - learn how to use UML to describe components in analysis, design and implementation of components - learn how to develop and apply component-based frameworks in product-lines - learn how to build new systems from pre-existing components and ensure that components are of a high quality The book also includes: - case studies: library system example running throughout the chapters; ERP/business software system as appendix or separate chapter - bibliography - glossary - appendices covering: UML profiles, concise process description in the form of UML activity diagrams, refinement/translation patterns AUDIENCE Software engineers, architects & project managers. Software engineers working in the area of distributed/enterprise systems who want a method for applying a component-based or product-line engineering approach in practice.